Intelligent Hockey

When discussing the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Phoenix Coyotes, similarities emerge. Both teams are in nontraditional hockey markets, both lack star power — rabid hockey fans know Sergei Bobrovsky won the Vezina in 2013, and that Oliver Ekman-Larsson is a top-flight defenseman, but neither player is the face of his franchise — and both have to pay the extra dollar to lure players to their organizations.

At first look, the apparent lack of depth in both teams’ lineups is glaring. So why are the Coyotes successful while the Blue Jackets are not? Only two years ago, Phoenix reached the Western Conference Finals before losing to the eventual Cup champions, and every year Phoenix seems to outperform Columbus significantly. Even this season, Phoenix is 6-2-2 and Columbus is 4-5.

There are a few reasons why the Desert Dogs consistently produce better. First, Phoenix plays to its strength; the team has a defined identity. The Coyotes are a team whose fulcrum of success is inverted from the traditional structure of having forwards drive possession. This did not happen overnight; general manager Don Maloney and coach Dave Tippett have continually found the right personnel and trotted out a competitive team for the last several years, and have been feted by the media for this accomplishment.

The Coyotes have a very fast and skilled set of defensemen who are great skaters and strong passers. They are the catalysts in generating traction; puck movement works through them. If you are going to build around your defensemen galvanizing your team’s tempo, they have to be very good, and the Coyotes’ defensemen are.

Phoenix’s forwards understand their assignments: provide pressure on the puck or, if you are not the primary forechecker, provide support. Also, play a strong 200-foot game and always contest the puck.

The Coyotes also are a very good faceoff team, finishing in the top ten in the League in 2011 (7th) and 2013 (5th) and always in the top half of the League. Phoenix has two very good faceoff men in Antoine Vermette and Martin Hanzal, though they lost a prolific faceoff man, Boyd Gordon, in the offseason.

Gordon was replaced by center Mike Ribeiro, who has won under 50 percent of faceoffs the last few years. Fortunately, Ribeiro’s skating and playmaking skills are way above Gordon’s.

This year, Ribeiro has started off strong on faceoff duties, sitting at 55.3 percent currently. The Coyotes are tied for second overall in faceoff-percentage at the 2014 season’s outset, and their puck possession is sound.

The Coyotes are a smart, well-coached team whose players understand their roles better than most. Radim Vrbata is probably the most striking example of this.

Vrbata was a seventh-round pick by the Colorado Avalanche in 1999. Now in his twelfth NHL season, he has played for five teams and been adequate or below-average for all of them except the Coyotes. Before Phoenix, the right winger registered his most goals his rookie season when he notched 18, and his second best total came with the Blackhawks five years later when he tallied 14.

Goal-scoring is Vrbata’s defined NHL skill, and since he contributes little else of value, these totals were not deemed sufficient. With Phoenix, the winger has scored 24, 27, and a career-high 35 goals in 2012. Vrbata gets favorable minutes with the Coyotes, positioned as the dangerous shooter in the slot on their power-play. But his success in the Phoenix organization continues to be a testament to coach Tippett’s ability to extract the best from his players.

The Coyotes have had to overpay players to keep them in an organization that has been marred by economic turmoil (Mike Smith, Ribeiro), but the Coyotes’ team identity is a winning one, and that is what counts.

Columbus: An Incomplete Tableau

The Blue Jackets are a team in flux. After general manager Scott Howson was relieved of his duties, President John Davidson hired Jarmo Kekalainen to fill the position. The Blue Jackets came into existence in the 2000-01 season, and the best they have ever finished in their division was in 2006, coming in third out of five.

They missed the playoffs that year, but in 2009, the Columbus franchise made its first and only postseason appearance even though they had come in fourth in their division (they finished with the same amount of points as St. Louis, 92, but lost the tiebreaker). They proceeded to be swept by the Detroit Red Wings in the Western Conference Quarterfinals. Columbus has had a mix of very bad luck and poor management, and the combination has led to over a decade of failure.

But this season’s Blue Jackets do have some interesting pieces, players who could play a role on a postseason team if enough things break right. The seemingly endless rebuilding does have a possible end point.

Since assuming the general manager role in early 2013, Kekalainen has made two very significant moves. He flipped Derick Brassard, Derek Dorsett, John Moore and a sixth-round pick for the New York Rangers’ Marian Gaborik. Gaborik was (and is?) a dynamic winger who got trapped in the John Tortorella doghouse, and is a possible steal if he can recapture his scoring touch and speed.

Kekalainen also signed the highly sought after, but oft-injured, power forward Nathan Horton to a very lucrative contract. Kekalainen’s predecessor, Howson, also had made a seismic swap when he dealt Rick Nash, the franchise’s top-scorer and former No. 1 overall pick, to the New York Rangers for Artem Anisimov, Brandon Dubinsky, Tim Erixon, and the Rangers’ 2013 first-round pick, which would become Kerby Rychel.

These moves all shaped the current version of the Blue Jackets, and their future — short- and long-term — is built around many of these players’ success. Gaborik is the Blue Jackets’ putative game-breaker. Brandon Dubinsky is an assistant captain, and his role as team leader and pugilistic forechecker is well-established. Artem Anismov sees crunch-time minutes for the team, and has performed very Anisimov-ly. (His statline through his first nine games is amusing because it depicts Anisimov perfectly as a player: two goals, two assists and a plus one +/-. He is occasionally great, sporadically inept, and consistently inconsistent.)

Nathan Horton’s return is looming as he recovers from shoulder surgery, and he is possibly the answer to Columbus’s scoring ills. The Blue Jackets’ hope is that Horton lifts their even-strength goal differential to the top half of the League. The former Boston Bruin has a seven-year, $37.1 million contract that will ensure that he is a building block for the team’s future.

Tim Erixon, 23 now, is with the Blue Jackets’ AHL affiliate, the Springfield Falcons. He might be a depth defenseman, a No. 6 on a mediocre team, a No. 7 on a good team, but the former sixth-round pick, Cam Atkinson, has looked like a key contributor at forward, so that late-round diamond somewhat negates the Erixon impact. Additionally, Ryan Murray, No. 2 overall pick from 2012, looks good as a future two-way, impact defenseman while former fourth overall pick from 2010, Ryan Johansen, continues to show he has much untapped potential. This team has some buzz, and we didn’t even discuss reigning Vezina-winner Sergei Bobrovsky.

Still, despite the Blue Jackets’ intriguing pieces, they do not have an ace in their deck like the Coyotes. Gaborik is a skilled scorer, but he is 31, turning 32 in February. Nathan Horton, 28, is a proven postseason catalyst, a very gifted forward who wins battles for the puck and can galvanize an impotent offense, but his staying healthy remains a question mark.

With Phoenix’s top-pair defensemen, Ekman-Larsson and Yandle, you have a duo whose average age is under 25. Antoine Vermette, their number two pivot (number one center is Martin Hanzal), has not missed a game since the Civil War (the same with Yandle).

Sometimes continued success is as simple as having your best players on the ice consistently, and that has been true for Phoenix, but not for Columbus (Gaborik had abdominal surgery in the offseason and has been battling flu-like symptoms of late).

The Wrinkle

With the NHL realignment, an ironic twist is that the Columbus Blue Jackets have fallen into fortunate circumstances by moving from the Western Conference (where the Coyotes reside) to the inferior Eastern Conference.

The East has been top-to-bottom worse for the last several seasons, but now there is a chasm between the contenders and the bottom-feeders. The Metropolitan Division is very, very weak so the possibility for the Blue Jackets to snag an improbable playoff spot is less thorny than seers foresaw before play began. And this doesn’t even account for the benefit of a significant decrease in travel.

The Blue Jackets field a lot of below-average players, but that lack of depth is applicable for every team in their new division. If Bobrovsky can deliver a save percentage in the .920 region and log over 65 games, Gaborik stays healthy and delivers top-minute production, Horton returns from his injury and plays up to 90 percent of his earnings, and defenseman Jack Johnson can lead the defensive corps to a performance that translates to the sum-being-greater-than-the-parts — this team will make the playoffs. It is a difficult proposition for a team whose parts are still meshing, but the 2014 season presents as good an opportunity as any.

In contrast, the two biggest dregs in the Western Conference (Edmonton and Calgary) play in the Pacific Division, but three powerhouses, and one former powerhouse, call the Pacific their home as well. The Kings have as much talent as any team in the NHL, and while they like to tread water in the regular season, when the playoffs come around they will be there — barring some unforeseen event, like Jonathan Quick getting seriously injured.

San Jose has set the world on fire thus far, and Anaheim has two talented forwards leading an interesting assortment of young talent and practiced senior players. They also have better goaltending depth than any team in the league — a coveted luxury in an 82 game season.

Vancouver is good, but the Sedin twins are slowing down, and they have players getting top-six minutes who are not deserving of top-six roles. Still, the back six has some punch, and Roberto Luongo’s reacclimation is on schedule. John Tortorella may be a misanthrope, but he is a very good coach. It is safe to guess the Canucks will make the postseason.

This leaves Phoenix in the undesirable position of surprising everyone and beating out one of the aforementioned (a distinct possibility, the Coyotes are chronically underrated), or unseating one of the Central teams in the fight for the last Wild Card spot. Chicago and St. Louis are safe bets to get in, Colorado is red hot (but will assuredly slow down), and Nashville is having a Music City revival with rookie Seth Jones getting top-pair minutes to complement Shea Weber. Minnesota has a lot of talent — some veteran, many young — and its medley of players is still gelling.

Winnipeg and Dallas have potential, but are probably a year or more away from playoff contention. This all leaves the Coyotes, the more polished and consistent franchise when compared to Columbus, in the unusually difficult position of being in the easier conference to reach the playoffs mathematically, but with a much tougher road to get there.